It's been a long hard month

This past month has brought some difficult things my way and yet here I am still plugging along!

Two of my kids had the stomach bug and then two of them had really bad colds.  My youngest was actually coughing so bad that it sounded like he was barking like a sea lion!  He LOVED that description...

As for myself, I have been battling with being nauseas and just not feeling well.  I had bloodwork done last week, an endoscopy this morning and have a colonoscopy scheduled in a couple of weeks. 

My way of dealing with all of this has been to spend time with my kids, start baking again and reading some books, to get lost into someone elses world.  I think these things are actually working!  It's amazing how the small stuff works better than the larger things.

One of the big time savers for me was the fact that I had a lot of food stocked up in my freezer and pantry, so I joined in with Jessica over at http://www.lifeasmom.com/ and did a major challenge.  My goal was to use up a lot of what we had and do as little shopping as possible.  I think I succeeded for the most part.  This past week I did go to the store and stock up on quite a bit of meat, since they had some really good sales and markdowns.  When I brought the meat home, I split it up into smaller quantities and marinated some chicken breasts and leg quarters and made up some hamburg patties.  These are now all in the freezer and will make my dinner prep a little easier in the upcoming weeks.

It doesn't always have to take a lot of time to get some meals made in advance and if you break it down into smaller quantities every couple of weeks, you'll save yourself a ton of time in the long run! (think of all of those sports games, after school activities and all the extra things you do during the week and on the weekends) 

Right now, my motto is LIVE LIFE TO THE FULLEST!!!

Review of the book Unto The Hills A Daily Devotional by Billy Graham

I was sent a copy of the book Unto The Hills A Daily Devotional by Billy Graham fromBooksneeze.  This book was one of the best daily devotionals I have seen.  Each devotional is a page long and the pages are broken up into monthly segments.  It is a very good book to read either all at once or to break in to the individual days.  Because I wanted to get the review done, I had to read it all at once, but I look forward to going through the book again and again, day by day.

The message of the book is all positive and can really lift your spirits for the day. Each passage gets you thinking about how you can make sure you are living your life the way you should and how you can keep God in all of your decisions. Each person will get something different out of this book, depending on where you are in your life and what struggles you may be having at the time. And as you continue reading it year after year, the way you look at the passages will continue to change after time. It is definitely a book that will be enjoyed for years to come. This book can also be used as a family reading passage and can be used as a teaching tool for every member of the family.